The CEO of LearnVest shares her 2 favorite job interview questions

Tuesday

Savvy hiring managers know which interview questions yield the most information possible about a job candidate  and those are the ones they ask.

In a recent interview with Adam Bryant of the New York Times, LearnVest CEO Alexa von Tobel revealed two questions she thinks are most telling (and almost always asks):

Her first go-to: What are you genuinely bad at?

She admits that oftentimes candidates will falter with this or try to spin a weakness into a strength, not wanting to disclose their vulnerabilities.

"If they don't give me a real weakness, I'll tell them about mine," she told Bryant. "And then I'll ask them again, 'What are you genuinely bad at? What does your spouse or partner or the person you're dating tell you you're bad at? Because if they haven't told you, then you shouldn't be sitting here because I can't work with you if you don't know what you're bad at."

Weakness are not bad or something to be afraid of, she emphasized. "I learned in business school that you don't need to limit your weaknesses. You should harness your strengths," von Tobel told Bryant. "That's one reason why I push hard in the interview on strengths and weaknesses. I want you to be able to harness your strengths and, if I can understand them, maybe we can push it further."

She said her other favorite question  which he closes every interview  is: Tell me about a time on a Sunday that you were thinking about going back to work and you hated your job. Why? What was it?

"We've all had Sunday nights when you were stressed and feeling the Sunday blues," she said. "That tells me a lot about the type of team member you're going to be."

Click here to read the full NY Times interview.

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